After the End
by MedlinTauroniell
Summary: Death does not mean the same thing here. [an epilogue to Who Killed Markiplier?]


You don't know how long you lingered in the hall after that _thing_ forced you out and walked away in your body. The sickening detached horror of the experience was only made worse by the fact that it doesn't really look like you anymore. You waited for it to come back, for the Colonel, for the detective. For anyone.

 _But nobody came._

When you finally try to move, you're pulled back into that fathomless darkness. You stay there for weeks, for tons, for gallons, for miles – no unit of measurement seems to fit. You stay there. The house keeps you there.

The void is pure nothingness in all its contradictions. It is vast and claustrophobic, shifting and still, silent and deafening. There is only you – and the body. It is never far off, no matter which direction you try to go.

You try not to look at it. Its silence taunts you. But you can't stand to stare into the bewildering emptiness around you for long. You start to feel that the only thing keeping you sane is the fact that there isn't enough of you left to go mad. It is not a comforting thought.

You think you hear the body speak to you again.

 _It's not fair, is it?_

You shove it away, exerting what little power you have in this place to force it out, back into the house. You never know what becomes of it.

You are alone.

The house shows you things, by and by. It lets you wander through your last days over and over again. It lets you see what happened down in the wine cellar that night. It lets you hear Mark's original plan, and tells you why you were invited to that party in the first place.

You'd never met Mark before that night, but he'd heard of you. You often came up in Damien's stories of college and the years afterwards. And Damien was so happy when he learned that you would be coming to work as the district attorney that he could speak of almost nothing else. In Mark's eyes, the Colonel had stolen Celine's love, and you had stolen Damien's friendship.

For that crime, you were to become a pawn in his plan for vengeance. You were the district attorney, after all. Who would be in a better position to make sure the Colonel got exactly what he deserved than you? And after stealing your body, Mark would've seen to it personally. But, of course, plans changed.

You don't know why the house shows you all this. Perhaps it's bored. Perhaps there isn't much else it can do with a disembodied soul.

But worse than any of that knowledge is when it reveals the echoes.

They are always just out of reach in the nothingness, and when you wander through the house they seem to be in the next room, out of sight but not quite out of earshot, so to speak.

The first of the two is confused, frightened, aghast at her own helplessness. She struggles to find a way out. She tries to draw from her power, only to find that she has none. She comes nowhere near you, and you make no effort to seek her out. You hate her.

 _Yes, it was all her fault, wasn't it? She's the one who did this to you. She deceived you. She used you. At the end of the day, she's no better than Mark._

The second is heartbroken, devastated, desperate. Instead of searching for an escape, he searches for you. For a long time, you pursue him through the nothingness, through the halls and empty rooms, chasing that single shred of hope – reuniting with the only friend you had in this place. But the house won't allow it. Eventually, you give up trying. You begin to despise him, too.

 _He was weak. He let this happen. He went along with Celine's plan even though he knew better. He never really cared about you. Was he ever truly your friend at all?_

The thoughts aren't yours. You know they aren't. You fight them as they try to consume what little of you there is left.

Then suddenly, after years – and you're not sure how you know it's been years – they're gone. The house goes silent. You don't quite understand why. Perhaps enough of the house had left with that _thing_ that its remaining presence could only hold out for so long. You don't understand, and you don't care. All you know is that something is gone, and you're still here.

And the echoes – the echoes are still here, too. You can feel them. The first one feels some power return to her, and flees instantly. The second lingers, hopeful and hesitant. There's no barrier keeping you from him anymore. All the pain, the betrayal, the hatred you'd been struggling against dissipates into the morning sun.

Morning. You'd almost forgotten what the word even means. You're not sure what you are now that you're still here, but you find that you've regained control over yourself. You hurry towards the remaining echo, towards what's left of Damien. There's something vaguely insubstantial about him as you throw your arms around each other. But as there's still enough of him left for you to give a proper hug, you aren't complaining. Before either of you can say anything -

"Oh my God… It's really you."

A voice. It's familiar. You both hesitate.

"You're still here, aren't you, partner?"

 **(Note: In lieu of getting any official answers as to what we were doing at that party and why it's significant that we were the district attorney, I had some thoughts XP. And yes, I know, I know. I went for a hopeful-ish ending after the "terrifyingly sad" canonical conclusion. Honestly, I was originally going to have the echo of Damien disappear at the same time as the house's presence, but that was too sad for a sap like me, haha. And dammit, pretty much every character in this story desperately deserves a hug - Damien and the DA especially. Thanks for reading!)**


End file.
